The High Court has found that drainage excavation, moving a gate and changes to ground levels at a site in Monkstown, Co Cork, amounted to unauthorised development. It directed the site owner to restore the affected parts to their condition before 26 June 2017, but left the precise terms of the orders to be settled after hearing counsel.
Mr Justice Quinn delivered the judgment on 21 January 2020 in a Circuit Court appeal. Four residents had appealed after the Circuit Court dismissed their application under section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 in October 2018. The High Court did not grant orders on every complaint raised.
The dispute concerned a site between two properties in the Demesne estate. The respondent, who bought the site in 2008, said he engaged a contractor in June 2017 to clear the stream and drains, remove dead tree stumps and grade the ground. He said the work was intended to clean up the site and address flooding at his family home opposite.
The court found that an open drain along the site’s north-west boundary had been excavated and replaced with a piped French drain and surrounding stonework. The work channelled water along the boundary towards Alta Terrace and reduced seepage into the site’s centre. The judge held that this altered the land and was unauthorised development, regardless of the claimed benefits for flooding.
The judge also found that the gate opening onto Alta Terrace had been moved several metres into the site during the June 2017 works, widening the entrance without permission. He ordered that the gate be returned to the boundary and the wall rebuilt to meet it. A survey submitted by the applicants’ engineer showed changes in ground levels, principally in the site’s north and north-eastern areas, which the court found should be reversed.
The applicants also alleged that trees had been removed and streams diverted or covered. The judge made no order on those matters: evidence did not establish that tree removal occurred during the June 2017 works, and the evidence did not show that the central stream’s closure took place then. The claim about loose stones near the south-west drain did not establish “works” under the Act; the court also declined to order relief over an alleged diversion there because the evidence was too vague.
The court considered the respondent’s engagement with Cork County Council, which took no enforcement proceedings, but said that this did not establish that the works complied with planning law. It concluded that the principal object and effect of the June 2017 works was to make the site more suitable for a house. The judgment records no final wording for the restoration orders; counsel were to be heard on their precise form.